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Finding a vaginal gel that protects women against the virus that causes AIDS but still allows them to get pregnant has long been sought by AIDS researchers, because it can be used secretly by women who fear being refused or even beaten if they ask their sexual partner to use a condom.

The first trial, reported in South Africa in the summer of 2010, found that a vaginal gel containing the drug tenofovir protected 39 percent of the women who used it, and that those who used it most regularly reduced their chances of infection by 54 percent.

It was hoped that the new trial, nicknamed Voice (for Vaginal and Oral Interventions to Control the Epidemic), would confirm that earlier trial, called Caprisa after the clinic in Durban that ran it.

The Voice trial, which began in 2009, enrolled more than 5,000 women in South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe. It was divided into three experiments, or arms, comparing three different products against a placebo — the gel, a tenofovir pill or a Truvada pill (tenofovir and a booster drug).

The trial of the tenofovir pill was canceled in September because it, too, did not appear to be working.

But because part of the study is still continuing, all the collected data — meaning, in particular, who was on the gel and who was on the placebo — cannot be “unblinded” yet, so the researchers cannot try to figure out why it did not work.

“Even when we have more information available to us, understanding why our results differed from the Caprisa results may not be clear,” said Sharon L. Hillier, a lead researcher for the Microbicide Trials Network, which is based at the University of Pittsburgh medical school and oversees many trials.

She said was “surprised and disappointed” by the cancellation.

In a statement, she and Dr. Ian McGowan, another researcher for the network, speculated that the problem might have been that too few women used the gel regularly, that the dosing schedule was wrong, or that it somehow caused inflammation that led to easier entry by the virus. But, Dr. Hillier added, it was unlikely that they would be able to assess that until later next year.

Ethics of modern clinical trials require that at various midway points, enough data be revealed to a panel of outside experts so they can assess whether the intervention being tested is safe for the participants and whether it is working.

In this case, 6 percent of women using the tenofovir gel and 6 percent of those using the placebo had become infected by the time the outside panel looked at the data. It was found to be safe but not effective, which ethically requires the cancellation of the trial to keep any more women from becoming infected.

The trial is expected to go on until mid-2012 and the data are to be released in early 2013. Other trials of gels at different formulations and dosing are planned or under way.

AT least six people have died in Britain after being told by evangelical churches they were healed of HIV.

According to a Sky News investigation, there is evidence that evangelical churches in London, Manchester in northern England, Birmingham in central England, and Scotland’s Glasgow are claiming to cure HIV through God.

Three undercover reporters were sent to the Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN), which is based in Southwark, south London. All of them told the pastors they were HIV positive – and all were told they could be healed.

Once a month the church has a prayer line, where people from across Europe come to be cured of all kinds of illness. At registration they have to hand over a doctor’s letter as evidence of their condition

They are filmed giving before and after testimonies, which are put on SCOAN’s website. The healing process involves the pastor shouting over the person being healed for the devil to come out of their body, while spraying water in their face.

One of the pastors, Rachel Holmes, told a reporter, who is a genuine HIV sufferer, they had a 100 per cent success rate. “We have many people that contract HIV. All are healed,” Ms Holmes said.

She said if symptoms such as vomiting or diarrhea persist, it is actually a sign of the virus leaving the body.

“We’ve had people come back before saying, ‘Oh I’m not healed. The diarrhea I had when I had HIV, I’ve got it again’,” Ms Holmes said. “I have to stop them and say, ‘No, please, you are free’.”

The church said patients would be able to discard their medication after their healing and that they would be free to start a family.

Medical professionals said at least six patients who have died after being told by various churches to stop taking their HIV medication.

The church has branches across the globe and its own TV channel. It is also a registered UK charity. In a statement, it said God was the healer, not its pastors.

“We are not the Healer; God is the Healer. Never a sickness God cannot heal. Never a disease God cannot cure. Never a burden God cannot bear. Never a problem God cannot solve. To His power, nothing is impossible. We have not done anything to bring about healing, deliverance or prosperity. If somebody is healed, it is God who heals,” the church said.

In the early 1980s, when the AIDS epidemic that went on to kill millions of people around the world was still a mystery, Christos Tsoukas was one of the few doctors in Montreal to treat people with HIV/AIDS. Colleagues would discreetly disappear to wash their hands if they’d shaken hands with him. You would not find an HIV/AIDS clinic in a hospital. It was always called something else, hinting at rather than naming the disease.

Tsoukas lost 100 patients a year to AIDS. It was heartbreaking work.

“One night, I was called when one of my patients was dying,” Tsoukas said this week in an interview in his office at the Montreal General Hospital.

“He was one of two brothers, both of whom had contracted AIDS through blood products. He died just as I arrived, surrounded by his family. Everyone was carrying a single red rose.

“I sat at the kitchen table, signing the death certificate. On one side of me was a beautiful flower and on the other side, a week-old baby, the child of my patient’s cousin. It brought home to me so strongly that there is a cycle of life. I will never forget that moment.”

By 1995, with the advent of effective anti-HIV drugs, the situation had changed, dramatically. Tsoukas has not had a single AIDS patient die in 15 years. “It’s amazing.” Drugs can prevent an infected partner from transmitting the virus, and drugs mean an infected mother doesn’t pass along the virus to her children.

Years ago, testing positive for HIV was a devastating diagnosis. Today, people won’t even get very sick, said Tsoukas. “We have new challenges,” he said. “We have people who are living into their 80s with AIDS and they have specific and complex problems, cardiovascular illness, diabetes, osteoporosis.”

Longer life spans mean that the number of people with HIV or AIDS remains high in Canada and the rest of the developed world. In Canada, an estimated 65,000 people were living with HIV in 2008, compared with 57,000 at the end of 2005. In 2008, new HIV infections numbered between 2,300 and 4,300, roughly similar to the figures from 2005. In Quebec, a total of 5,199 cases of HIV infection were reported between 2002 and 2008, the majority in Montreal. In Quebec as elsewhere in the developed world, homosexual men continue to be more affected than any other group.

In the developed world, the way is open to stopping the virus from spreading. In the lead-up to the annual World AIDS Day on Dec. 1, a British Columbia AIDS expert, Dr. Julio Montenar, told a U.S. medical conference that the province had achieved an astonishing 96.3-per-cent drop in HIV transmission.

Montenar, head of the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, was reported as saying that the key to success is testing, followed by treatment with highly active antiretroviral therapy.

Unfortunately in Canada, an estimated 27 per cent of people infected with HIV are unaware of their infection. Treatment may be the best protection, but they aren’t getting it.

“Today, unless someone is in a community where AIDS is talked about, that person won’t know about it. Years ago, you would see posters or television campaigns, but not today,” said Tsoukas. He would like to see hospitals make an effort to teach patients about HIV. But on even the most basic level, “You still won’t see clinics called HIV/ AIDS clinics,” he said.

In the developing world, the news was heartening, with the United Nations publishing data showing that hundreds of thousands of lives had been saved by the availability of cheap drugs and new infections were down by as much as 30 per cent to 50 per cent. But the good news was sharply undercut this week by the announcement by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, hard hit by the continuing economic crisis, that it would cancel its next round of funding. The fund pays for more than 70 per cent of AIDS medicine.

Even with medicine, the developing world is struggling. Last summer, Tsoukas travelled to Tanzania, to visit an HIV/AIDS clinic founded by an Ottawa doctor, Don Kilby (http: //cacha.ca).

“There was a 29-year-old girl with lymphoma,” said Tsoukas, “which is treatable. But she could not afford the bus fare to get to Dar es Salaam to be treated. No one in her family could go with her. You have to have someone, because there are so few nurses.”

The young woman died. “You become very pessimistic,” Tsoukas said, sadly. “The medication is available, but people can’t get to it.”

Israelis are justifiably proud of their country’s record on gay rights, especially when that record is compared to that of its neighbors. This Israeli pride is too much for anti-Israel activists to bear, including one who on the Times op-ed page today accuses Israel of “pinkwashing” its real human rights record.

My in-box is filled with outraged responses from gays and lesbians (most, though not all, Jewish). Here is one response from a person who has been active in the gay rights movement who is an acquaintance of mine:
It’s astonishing that someone would reduce the very visible presence of gay men and women in Israel, and their enfranchisement as members of the community in good standing as a mere public relations ploy. And not least because Jews have played an instrumental role in the struggle to secure those rights, in the U.S. and in Israel. It is part of Jewish culture’s DNA to champion the cause of minorities, not a stratagem cooked up by some PR firm, as Israel’s inveterate adversaries on the Left would have people believe. History shows as much, and certainly with respect to homosexuality.

Moreover, for someone putatively on the Left, the writer is doing harm to her own professed interests. Is she suggesting that a country shouldn’t be proud of its record of championing a progressive cause, or cite it as evidence of the enlightened nature of its politics? And is she really unwilling to affirm those achievements? Does she begrudge Israel any praise for establishing a haven for those rights in a region not widely recognized for its hospitality to minorities?

She describes gay rights in Israel as an incomplete picture of civil rights in the country, which is fair enough, though as usual, it doesn’t acknowledge the arduous efforts of Netanyahu’s recent predecessors to grant the Palestinians almost all of what they purport to want. But its not in the nature of politics to be perfect, especially with regard to minority rights. It is always a struggle to build something inherently fragile in the face of a constant war of attrition against an often unyielding majority. If the Left is not willing acknowledge the tangible differences between Israel’s treatment of its gay citizens and the persecution gay and lesbians face in many of the neighboring countries, and to throw its support to Israel, then it is risking seeing those hard-won gains evaporate.

The case of an openly gay Ohio student whose vicious bullying attack was caught on video is increasing calls for anti bullying policies aimed specifically at protecting gays. The video went viral on the web, prompting the school district to take action. It may even have an effect on pending legislation at the statehouse.

Zach Huston had complained to officials at Union Scioto High School about taunting and teasing from his classmates several times. Little was done about his complaints. Kids will be kids, he was told by teachers and administrators at the rural central Ohio school

On October 17th, Huston walked into a classroom. He walked into the middle of an ambush.

A video — thought to have been taken by the perpetrator’s cousin — shows a boy pacing in a classroom until Huston enters, at which point Huston gets pushed around, knocked to the ground, and punched repetitively.

Once the video went viral on the web, it was picked up by Columbus TV Stations. That’s where it caught the attention of Bret Thompson of Columbus and prompted him to act.

“I decided to get involved and start an online petition, which to date over 84-thousand people have signed on asking the school district down there to reform their policies.”

Not only did his petition quickly gather signatures, Thompson says he also received about 4000 comments on his petition’s website.

“People that were former and current students at that school. Educators across the state, first responders, parents, so many people that have been personally affected by this.”

Thompson says he quickly realized the beating of Huston was not an isolated event.

“It’s much bigger than just the school or just the incident. Things like this happen to varying degrees of severity every day in the schools across Ohio.”

Nick Worner / Ohio ACLU.

Just days before Huston was attacked at school, he received harassing comments on his Facebook page.

A 2005 study by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network found that nearly half of Ohio students considered bullying in general to be a serious problem in their schools. A more recent national study showed that almost 90 percent of L-G-B-T students had experienced harassment..

“If you don’t put in the policy that people shouldn’t be bullied based upon their orientation or sexual identity, often times in rural and more conservative areas as well as some suburban school districts that we’ve seen, teachers don’t believe they are supposed to intervene when someone says that’s so gay.”

–Ed Mullen, Executive Director of EqualityOhio.

“If you don’t put in the policy that people shouldn’t be bullied based upon their orientation or sexual identity, often times in rural and more conservative areas as well as some suburban school districts that we’ve seen, teachers don’t believe they are supposed to intervene when someone says…that’s so gay,” Mullen says.

He wants school to list everyone who is protected under an anti-harassment policy instead of just generally telling students “don’t bully.”

Mullen says that is probably not going to prevent all bullying, but “it at least lets people know on day one that that’s against the school policy and that’s unacceptable.”

These laws aren’t always the easiest to pass. Mullen says there is often push back that the current anti-harassment policies are enough, that these laws push too far into local school jurisdiction, or that they advocate on behalf of gay students.

Mullen hopes the attention of the Union Scioto case will give these bills a boost.

The entire B.C. tourism division will receive sensitivity training after releasing a pamphlet prohibiting businesses from promoting gay tourism when dealing with China.

B.C. Jobs, Tourism and Innovation Minister Pat Bell released a report on the gaffe Thursday that blames the offending passage on “poor judgment, not malicious intent.”

The gay tourism reference was found on page 24 of the “How to Market Your Business to China” document, along with bans on touting B.C.’s casinos and gambling.

“Tourism BC will also require that any partner operator agrees” not to promote gay tourism, it reads, “per the China National Tourism Administration.”

The passage has since been removed.

The report concludes that tourism staff had ample time to locate the offensive language, and that the attribution to the CNTA was inaccurate.

“Staff did not follow proper procedures to ensure that senior ministry staff was aware of the questions being raised, or that they provided correct information to the Minister,” the report says.

In response to the investigation, the tourism division will receive sensitivity and procedural training, it adds.

Bell says he also offered a personal apology to New Democrat tourism critic Spencer Chandra Herbert, who described the inclusion of the ban as an apparent endorsement of discrimination against gays and lesbians.

The brochure also describes the Chinese market as “not a sophisticated” one, and partners are advised to view it “as we would with a child, for the day when they grow into a mature and strong adult.”

The highly-anticipated gay wedding issue of Archie Comics has finally been revealed.

The January issue’s cover illustration shows Kevin Keller, Riverdale’s first openly gay character who is also an active U.S. military officer, tying the knot with his African-American partner, Clay Walker. ComicsAlliancereported in October that the story of the couple’s meeting, said to take place in a military hospital, “obviously deals with [‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’] but it doesn’t spell it out for the reader,” and may be revealed in flashback, according to Archie Comics CEO Jon Goldwater.

When the miniseries was announced in 2010, author Dan Parent told the Associated Press, “The world of Riverdale has to reflect contemporary culture and to show it is an accepting, diverse place. And that’s why Kevin is important, to show that everybody is welcome in this all-American town we’ve embraced for over 70 years.” Parent was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award for creating the character.

Not surprisingly, the introduction of the fictional character, in addition to his marriage, has drawn both strong praise and harsh criticism. “I think it’s great that the reality of America’s loving couples are being portrayed in as many places as possible,” Evan Wolfson, the founder and president of Freedom to Marry, told Fox News.“We all want to be part of family and community –- that’s what marriage is about.” On the other hand, the Family Research Council’s Peter Spriggs noted, “It’s unfortunate that a comic book series usually seen as depicting innocent, all-American life is now being used to advance the sexual revolution.”

In November 2011 St Petersburg shocked the world. The legislative assembly approved, in its first reading, a bill which outlawed the promotion of homosexuality, transsexuality and paedophilia to minors. The passage of the bill provoked a quick reaction from local LGBT activists, who organised several protests against the initiative. It also mobilised the international community. The bill was condemned by MEPs, the US state department and thousands of people from around the world, who signed an online petition against its implementation.

St Petersburg, which is deemed the cultural capital of Russia, the place where many famous gay people created our artistic heritage, entered into the 21st century’s hall of shame by drifting into medieval barbarity.

The bill that was proposed in St Petersburg sets administrative fines for the propaganda of homosexuality, transsexuality and paedophilia but it does not explain what “propaganda” actually means. For what is the difference between the public expression of someone’s loving feelings and the promotion of a lifestyle? Can a work of art be considered propaganda? Can a protest for human rights be considered as imposing one’s personal characteristics on others?

The St Petersburg bill does not answer these questions. In fact, it not only equates homosexuality to paedophilia but also separates homosexuality and heterosexuality, as the latter, in the MPs’ view, can be promoted.

The city – where the famous Russian gay composer Peter Tchaikovsky lived, worked and died just days after conducting his Sixth Pathétique symphony, where the gay writer Nikolay Gogol wrote many of his classical works, and where a gay ballet dancer in the form of Rudolf Nureyev gracefully flew over the stage of the Mariinskiy Theatre – turned out to be in the hands of uneducated clericals. Will they ever be well known by the world, except for their anti-gay hatred?

What is sure is that if the bill does pass, the hundreds of tourists aboard Baltic Gay Cruise of Atlantis will hardly feel themselves as safe as before, when they step on St Petersburg soil in July 2012.

International and local protests are very important in finding a solution to this homophobic initiative. But the roots of this plague are not in the northern capital of Russia. They are just 180km from Russia’s capital Moscow, in the city of Ryazan. In 2006 local lawmakers adopted the first ever law prohibiting propaganda of homosexuality to minors in Russia. This law was meant to stigmatise Russian gays and lesbians, but was ultimately merely symbolic, as in five years it was only used once. When the activists of Moscow Pride and GayRussia went to Ryazan to help educate minors that homosexuality is normal, they were arrested, detained, fined and challenged in the courts.

The case of Nikolay Bayev v Russia, challenging the propaganda laws of Ryazan, has been pending before the European court of human rights since November 2009. The opening of this case by Strasbourg judges is now the only legally binding way to challenge Ryazan, St Petersburg and any future, even possibly, federal law, prohibiting the propaganda of homosexuality in Russia.

The LGBT community has to unite around this case now to stop similar initiatives, not only in Russia but also in other European countries where similar bills are being discussed, such as Lithuania and Ukraine. Because this issue is not only Russian: it is an eastern European one. And this case can put a final stop to the issue by creating a European precedent.

Gay people are being used as scapegoats in Russian politics, where society is still largely homophobic. The St Petersburg initiative, coming just before the parliamentary elections on 4 December, is possibly just aiming to increase the vote for the ailing ruling United Russia party of Prime Minister Putin and President Medvedev, but it also creates an atmosphere of hatred in society.

This atmosphere is made clear when the governor of Tambov called for gays to be torn into pieces and thrown in the wind, or when former Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov called us alternatively “satanic”, “faggots”, “western weapons of mass destruction” and made us responsible for the spread of HIV”.

In June 1961, Rudolf Nureyev fled from the USSR, asking for political asylum in France. He became a star in Leningrad (now St Petersburg), but went far beyond the official constraints on his liberty, creativity and expression of his times. I hope that the Russian LGBT people of today will not one day wake up facing similar challenges that will force them to leave their country forever.

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